Air Assist "mod" to our Glowforge

[evansd2]

@gianluca

Are you aware of other mods?

I went the other way entirely and wanted to reduce the air assist:

How to manually control the air assist fan power

Disclaimer: If you are unsure of either of the following: “why would you want to do this?” “what problems could this cause?” … then turn around and walk away, this isn’t for you (I am only half kidding!) The bottom line is that this may elevate your fire risk, reduce your air assist fan life, or cause a change to the fumes generated by your cuts. It may not do these things too, there’s just not enough data to say for sure either way. I’ve been using them for some time wit…

Then I wanted to overpower the air assist to keep light materials from moving:

Vacuum tray replacement for cutting lightweight materials

The chase: [image] So I made a fullsize tray replacement vacuum table. The idea is that it allows me to cut very lightweight materials without worrying about flyaways. A quick disclaimer: It’s possible that this is a fire risk, airflow and contained spaces and all. I feel as though it isn’t, but I’m just a dude with a laser who thinks he’s got decent risk assessment skills. Use your noodle if you try something like this Say you wanted to cut some rolled trace paper: [im…

I also devised a way to focus below the height of the crumb tray:

Deep focusing the lens

So I had this idea for a while and finally got to it: an extension spacer for the lens so that you could engrave/score (or cut) the inside of a tray up to about 1” deep. Normally you are limited to trays no more than 0.5” deep because of the limited focal sweet spot of the Glowforge, but if you physically move the lens down and lie to the Glowforge about the height of your material, it will happily do the job. Here’s a quick makeshift “tray” that’s about 0.75" deep, a really shallow cardboard …

@timjedwards did two great projects, tray boots and replacement lens tools:

Give that wiggly GF tray the boot!

NOTE Jan. 2022: Rev 3 now available for newer model machines (see below). What are these, incredibly realistic keychain fobs? Earrings for a Texan ball? Props for a spaghetti western dollhouse? None of those things, my friend! [image] They are stabilizing boots for your 'Forge! Resting on the bottom of your machine and out of the way of any moving parts, these little guys keep your tray from moving even a fraction of a kerf. Seriously, it’ll be solid as a rock. Now you’ll be one step c…

Replacement Blue Thing (Lens Removal Tool)

Oh no, you dropped the blue thing! That ring magnet is so easy to break. Or maybe blue things just don’t bring you joy, so you discarded it. Whatever, who am I to judge? But now, my friend, your cuts are getting weaker and your lens probably needs cleaning. What to do? Is your beautiful machine naught but a paperweight for lack of a blue thing? Well, let’s fix the problem… Order a new blue thing. Oh wait, that’s a bit expensive and slow. Source a replacement ring magnet. Talk about ex…

@taylor.a.jenkins designed a rotary system to engrave round objects:

Rotary Engraving a Yoyo on my Glowforge

I had an urgent request this weekend from a really good friend of mine to engrave around the rim of a yoyo. I had been noodling on this idea since I got my Glowforge a couple years ago, so when the request came, I knew I had to try it. I did, and with success! I designed and cut my rotary fixture out of a single sheet of proofgrade medium draftboard. The current design will work with cylinders measuring 1.5" to 2.125" diameter, and can utilize the full travel of the machine. I think it will be …

@JINTEC posted an outstanding cooling mod:

Cooling System

Like many I have already run into the problem of the ambient room temperature being to hot to run my GF. As I am very short on space I decided to build a chiller right into my bench. I used two 120W Peltier plates mounted to large 4 tube heat-sinks that are cooled with 3 12v fans each. I used a cheap PC liquid cooling system as a chiller under the GF, mounting the RAD directly under the right side intake. I use a 120mm fan mounted on the GF exhaust to draw the cold air in when the unit is not r…

Beyond that there are many other common mods. I’ll be generous with the term:

• Magnet brackets for bypassing the front door safety
• Material hold down pins that plug into your crumb tray
• External exhaust fans
• Related: cutting out your internal exhaust fan to improve airflow for the external fan that you’ve now added
• Cutting out the bottom of your machine so it can be lifted and accommodate taller objects
• Related: using insulated duct to reduce noise
• Externally mounted adjustable/positioning lamps to improve camera performance
• Using a switch bot to automatically press the button on the machine
• Using a dedicated video camera to watch the machine from a remote location in real time

Then there’s the world of software modifications:

• Using a plug-in in your browser to add sound cues to when your Glowforge is ready
• Using style bot plugin to suppress the chat Sidebar
• Using a redirector plugin to avoid the ad-filled main page of the dash
• Alternately using a content blocker to suppress parts of the main dash
• Various plugins for inkscape to improve laser designs (a few made by me and posted here)

The list goes on, I’m sure I’ve missed many… But this is a good start.

PS: this would be an excellent time to go back and tag some of these posts as mods. If you want to help and find a good modification post using the search, go ahead and tag it as “mod”, it’ll make it easier to search for them in the future.